Michael Broussard

Tels 3340

Case Study 12

1. Why do you think Bill Martin is so concerned about his meeting with his area
manager? Should he change the rating methods he uses to evaluate his
employees? Why or why not?
Bill Martin is concerned about his meeting with his area manager because
during the previous years meeting, Bill rated all of his employees very high
in all areas that were being reviewed, which showed the manager that Bill
Martin was not doing an efficient job of doing the employee evaluations.
Although it is normal for employees to perform well at their jobs, not
everyone performs perfectly and giving everyone high evaluations shows that
Bill Martin did not thoroughly evaluate his employees. Bill Martin should
change the rating methods that he uses to evaluate his employees in order to
get accurate feedback on the performance of each of his individual
employees instead of rating everyone nearly the same.
2. What are some of the benefits Bill Martins employees get from their
performance reviews? What are some drawbacks?
Bill Martins employees appear to be exceptional workers because Bill Martin
scores everyone highly on all categories in the performance evaluations. This
lets the managers know that the entire employees under Bill Martin work
exceptionally well and they appear to be above average employees. The
drawback is that since all of Bill Martins employees are rated so highly,

managers expect them to perform extremely well and when the next annual
review is done, the performance for that year is supposed to be high, but may
be low due to the fact that Bill Martin did not take the time to individually and
properly evaluate all of his employees. This makes both Bill Marin and the
employees look bad because it makes them seem as if they have dropped in
performance throughout the year.
3. What could Bill do to improve the performance evaluation process in his
store?
Instead of giving everyone a high score across the board in all criteria, Bill
Martin can implement an individual ranking system that forces him to review
the individual performance of every employee and compare them to
determine who has the highest performance and who has the lowest. This will
ensure that there is only one best performer and since ties are not allowed,
Bill Martin will have to thoroughly inspect the differences between each
employee to accurately classify them in their ranking.
4. What are the legal issues Martin and other supervisors need to consider in
conducting performance appraisals? Develop a list of guidelines Bill could
follow to avoid legal problems.
Bill Martin should first find out if the company has a published handbook that
describes its performance appraisal procedures. If it does, he should ensure
that he fully understands its contents because the courts in most states
consider them to be binding contracts. The organization can be held
accountable if the procedures are not followed or are followed incorrectly. Bill
Martin should also remember that equal employment opportunity laws
require that all human resource practices be bias-free, including employee
performance appraisals. The appraisal criteria, methods, and documentation
must be designed to ensure that they are job related. They must not create a

different effect on women or minorities. Appraisal judgments must be neutral

regarding an employees race, color, religion, age, gender, or national origin.
This will act as a guideline for Bill Martin to ensure that he does not run into
any legal issues.